October 2007

Fall Retreat

As we pass the half-way point of the fall our desire is to raise students’ view of God and their desire to serve him. Fall Retreat is one way of accomplishing those goals in our movements.

Almost exactly 400 students, including about 140 from UM, came to the Fall Retreat this past weekend near Kalamazoo! So many more came than we expected that we were scrambling to find places for everyone to sleep. Fortunately, college men are resilient, and a number of them slept outside under a gazebo!   

The Retreat included three different teams of Campus Crusade for Christ staff and the campuses they represent.  These teams were our Ann Arbor Staff Team (with students from UM, EMU, Albion, Adrian, Kettering, UM-Flint, and SVSU), the Detroit Metro Staff Team (with students from Lawrence Tech, Oakland, Wayne State, and other schools), and the Western Michigan Team (with students from WMU, Grand Valley State, GVCC, and more).

Our main speakers (veteran missionaries with CCC, Don & Kathryn Mansfield) really challenged students with amazing stories of people coming to know Jesus overseas and with teaching from the Bible on how God wants to use them to tell their friends about Jesus Christ. Students came away with a greater desire to reach their campuses with the good news of Christ.

Students had a lot of fun with things like a great worship band, impromptu football games (like WMU vs. UM— UM won!), our first annual Cru 10K Race (which I organized), and more.

In addition to having fun, students had opportunities to spend time with God

Students line up for lunch. It can take a while to feed 400 campers!

Andrew Arthritis Update

Andrew had his regular appointment with his rheumatologist Friday and we were hopeful that he would get to drop one more medication. However, they (rheumatologist and resident) found that his arthritis is flaring up again. So, Andrew will be going to the hospital in the next few weeks to be put under general anesthesia so his doctor can drain the fluid in his knee and inject steroids directly into it. This will be the 3rd time he’s had this procedure since being diagnosed in 2002. The procedure itself will take 5 minutes at most but he must be perfectly still, thus the anesthesia. Nate and I both went with him the first time and it was really difficult for me emotionally. Nate took him last time and will do so again this time. Please pray that this will be effective in stopping the arthritis from attacking his knee and that he won’t have to go back on methotrexate, which would also mean going back on folic acid and monthly blood draws. In addition to the emotional toll and extra time needed for blood draws, this would also add to our medical expenses.

Trip to Seattle

From very early in our marriage Shelly and I began saving for an anniversary trip, and we decided it would be a 10th anniversary trip. Well, our 10th anniversary came and went and we found ourselves with young children who we couldn’t leave. Finally now, past our 13th anniversary, with our children old enough to leave, we took few days over U-M’s fall break to take this long-awaited vacation!

We decided to go to Seattle because it was a place with a lot to do and where neither of us had been before. The highlights for us were getting to see two sets of friends in Seattle and Portland, the Space Needle, getting to run (and Shelly to ride) along the waterway near the UW campus, seeing Mt. St. Helens, taking a car ferry back to Seattle, and the Seattle Underground Tour. Weather was very good especially for this time of year. We only had one day of light rain. Both sets of grandparents watched our kids and everything was fine for all of them while we were gone.

At the Johnson Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens

The Seattle Space Needle

Multnomah Falls

Kids' Column

We sure had fun while Daddy and Mommy were gone. We visited children’s museums 3 times—twice at our favorite museum in Albion. We had movie nights with popcorn and ate at McDonald’s twice. It was fun to have some extra time with our Papas and Grandmas. Caleb was a little sad when Mommy instead of Grammy got him up the morning after they got back. But we did miss them!

We went to fall retreat last weekend and that was a lot of fun, too. We played outside at their new putt-putt course and in the gym a lot. We got to stay up late both nights and Caleb even got to sleep in a bunk bed instead of his pak ‘n play! There were 3 other kids there for us to play with and Andrew especially liked playing with Ethan. Daddy organized a race for the students and Mommy got to knit with a big group of students. She learned that it is harder to teach someone to knit than it is to just knit.

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